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Pension Transferred

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Well it finally happened.  Despite the best attempts by Willis Towers Watson to delay the process, I finally received my money, all £910k, into my new SIPP.  Now the fun starts! Transfers of Defined Benefit Pensions (or Final Salary schemes) into private pensions (such as SIPPs) have been getting a lot of bad press recently.  Fears of miss-selling claims are front and centre of IFAs' minds.  I can understand this because most recipients of these transfers have no experience of investing successfully.  Getting hold of the money is only the first step, investing it for growth, and then for income, is needed for a financially successful retirement. My job now is to build a portfolio that can grow over the next year or two.  At 54 I have to wait at least a year before I can drawdown my pension.  I would love to use that year to grow my fund by 20%.  This is the target I set (and am beating) this year on my ISAs. A more realistic target woul...
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Final Salary Transfer - Getting closer

I have until the end of the month to finalise the transfer of my final salary (or Defined Benefits) pension.  It was valued at just over £900k  This is a life-changing amount of money. My IFA is working hard on my behalf to get all the paperwork in line before the deadline. A hurdle was overcome earlier in the week when he officially gave me his recommendation to transfer based on future cashflows and future potential wealth accumulation.  He had to get his  firm's "peer review" of his advice.  All IFAs are scared of defined benefits transfers. My mind has been racing ahead assuming that I get control of the money.  I have been reading articles about transfer values reducing as interest rates start to creep up.  Other articles have been speculating that restrictions will be placed on the type of transfer I want to make.  The governments annual budget announcement is in a couple of days time and I am praying nothing is announced that will scu...
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Investing to escape - Monks

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To escape the rat race I'll be dependent on good investments.  I'll explain my portfolio structure later, but one of the elements is a Self Invested Pension Plan, or a SIPP.  At the time of writing the second biggest holding in my SIPP is in an investment trust called Monks.  I have over £20,000 invested in Monks.  In the seven months I have owned it, it has grown by 20%. Growth is what Monks is all about.  I am not focusing on investment income at the moment as I am still in the rat race.  I want to grow the size of my investments as much as I can before I start depending on them as my only source if income in about a year. So far I am really happy as an investor in Monks but it is sometimes worth reminding yourself, as an investor, what exactly underpins your trust... why should they have £20,000 of my money? Monks is a "best ideas" investment trust which means they don't try to replicate any market by spreading their bets too thinly.  Instead ...
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I'm the Rat Race Refugee

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I'm the Rat Race Refugee.  Or, to be more accurate, I am hatching an escape plan. After being Mr Corporate for 30 years, I have just realised that I may be able to join the FIRE revolution (Financially Independent Retiring Early). This is a blog about my transformation from Mr Corporate to Mr Rat Race Refugee.  The transformation is all about control.  Control of my finances, control of my health, control of my TIME. I am a year away from hitting the magic age of 55.  In the UK this marks the age you have to be to get hold of your pension, and, thanks to government de-regulation, getting hold of your pension means you can do what the hell you want with it. As you will see in future posts, I am not the kind of guy to blow it on fast cars and drugs (although I may pop open a bottle of cava).  I will go into details later, but I think I have enough to live on and, if my investment decisions are good, enough to grow the pot and leave a wodge to the kids, or a...
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